UPPER MERION — The gloomy skies were a fitting backdrop to the matchup between Upper Dublin and Upper Merion, two teams that share similar hope of climbing out of the doldrums of the Suburban One American league is dwindling. It was Upper Merion who finally got the upper hand, 3-1, to earn its first victory of the season.

At the halfway point of the season, with two points combined in league between the two teams, time is waning for the beleaguered squads to find a solution to their woes.

“We said to the guys coming in, ‘you can’t think of this season as over,’ even though we’re sitting at the bottom of the league,” Upper Merion coach Matt Mitchell said. “You have to think that there’s still another half to go.”

Upper Merion saw UD — who before Friday sat just one point above Upper Merion at 1-5 — as a team that could help them start a run, or at least to form a semblance of positive season. With ten games left in the season, time is running out for the Vikings, but Friday’s game was the first step they hoped to take in the right direction.

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Starting pitcher for the Vikings, Mike Greenwood, was dominant in his performance. Throwing a complete game, Greenwood carried his team to success, only allowing one run to the opposing team. In the bottom of the fourth, Upper Merion put up three runs on the board, and after a stern talk by UD coach, Ed Wall, the Cardinals came back out swinging the bat. In both the fifth and the sixth inning, UD loaded the bases with less than two outs. Greenwood, however, shut down each inning by striking out the side and squashing any opportunity for a Cardinal’s comeback victory.

“He’s a guy who has shown throughout the season, even with his struggles at the plate, that he’s not the kind of guy that lets stuff get to him,” Mitchell said of Greenwood.

“We got to stick through it, get more focused, have some energy at the plate and in the field, because we’ve had some difficultly keeping focus and keeping our heads up,” Greenwood said, who went seven innings, gave up one run on seven hits, struck out six and walked three.

The run-scoring hero of the game came in the form of left-fielder Jordon Moffett, who early in the game was kicking himself for a base-running mistake, but later came back in heroic fashion. In the bottom of the third, Moffett was caught stealing second, which he vociferously defended never being tagged by the second baseman. However, he was sent back to the bench and the bases remained empty.

“You get caught at second and you feel like you’re taking a possible run away from your team,” Moffett said.

However, in the fourth, bases juiced, Moffett was again called to the batter’s box and redeemed himself.

“You come up with the bases loaded and you want to get a good at-bat, and thankfully I was able to do that,” Moffett said. “It felt great and it gave us the runs that we needed.”

Moffett was 2-3 in the game with a double and two RBI.

“With the way our season has been going, he could have very easily just shut it down, but he’s a kid who’s our energizer and makes us go,” Mitchell said.

The relief of winning the first game of the season was written on the player’s faces. This win, they hope, will be the first of many victories to finish out the season. Even at 1-10, the playoffs are still a foreseeable goal in their minds.

“I mean, we’re all really close as a team, we’ve played together for years,” Moffett said. “Today, I think, was a big jelling point, and I think it’s going to continue from this point forward.”